My Journey
As a motion designer, I'm always looking for new ways to push the boundaries of my craft. Recently, I embarked on an exciting project centered around the concept of gravity. The fundamental nature in itself was enough to let me be creative, so I decided to literally create it on gravity itself
Conceptualization and Storyboarding
The project began with a simple prompt at school: make a realistic animation applying the laws of gravity. I initially started out with a simple ball bouncing and animated it, but then it seemed too simple and lacked an actual story. So I used my original concept and created multiple layers of more animations incorporating some of the techniques Professor Webb was teaching us in class.
So I challenged myself to not only go with my ball bounching but incorporate trim paths, echo, a match cut, null objects, and multiple layers and nested sequences.
Bringing the Concept to Life
To create a sense of weight and mass, I heavily utilized the principle of squash and stretch. As objects fall they elongate, then compress upon impact, giving them a lifelike quality that enhance the influence of gravity giving it the illusion that is real.
Anticipation and Follow-through
I incorporated anticipation before objects began to float, and follow-through as they settled back down. These subtle movements added realism and helped viewers connect with the animated ball subconsciously.
Easing and Timing
The majority of the project was me paying a lot of detail to the manipulation of speed utilizing the speed graph. I used extreme ease-ins and ease-outs to simulate the acceleration of falling objects and the gradual deceleration of rising ones. Many hours were consistently spent in the speed graph editor getting the motion as close as possible to live like as I could.
Final Product
The Final product turned out well and I kept it to 10 seconds while incporating all the techniques I learned to the best of my abilities. I am quite happy with how it turned out, and even in the last minutes I decided to add some sound design to it, you know to give more life to the little ball and his journey. If I have some time to go back I would definitely animated the lines to morph back into the little ball instead of just fading out into the background.